LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY It’s a miracle being here on Christmas Eve. It’s a lifetime opportunity. I wish
everybody could be here.” Jeffrey Lynch,
36, a sanitation worker
from New York City, visiting Bethlehem Article, 2AServices for cleric banned in Iran
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran banned memorials for the country’s most senior dissident cleric and reiterated a stern warning to the opposition Thursday, after days of services in honor of the spiritual leader turned into street protests against the government.
A commemoration had been planned for Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri in the town of Kashan, 135 miles south of Tehran, according to reformist Web sites.
But a large banner was put up in the town proclaiming that the Supreme National Security Council has banned any memorials for Montazeri except in the holy city of Qom and the cleric’s hometown of Najafabad. The Web site Parlemannews carried a photo of the banner in Kashan.
Bomb in cart kills
8 in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A man driving a horse-drawn cart laden with explosives detonated the cache Thursday outside a guesthouse frequented by foreigners in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, killing at least eight people including a child, police said.
Security guards at the Continental guesthouse became suspicious of the man and opened fired on him when he failed to heed their instructions, deputy provincial police chief Fazel Ahmad Sharzad told reporters at the scene. Injured, the man then detonated his explosives, Sharzad said.
Some of the eight who died were in a car that was passing by the area.
Four other people, including a guesthouse security guard, were injured in the blast.
Jamaica, U.S.
probe plane crash
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaican and U.S. authorities launched an investigation Thursday examining whether the pilot of American Airlines Flight 331 could have avoided an accident that cracked open the plane and sent nearly 100 people to the hospital.
One alternative could have been to abort the landing and circle around for another attempt, Oscar Derby, director general of Jamaica’s Civil Aviation Authority, said.
The Boeing 737-800 skidded off the runway of Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport late Tuesday, lurching as it stopped at the edge of the Caribbean Sea. The flight originated from Reagan National Airport in Washington and left Miami International Airport about an hour late.
All 154 people aboard survived, with 92 taken to hospitals, but none of the injuries was considered lifethreatening.
The U.S. State Department said 76 of the passengers were Americans.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 12/25/2009